The planes and the shows

As it did for many transplants from the East, watching my first Starlight show left me speechless — and fearing deafness. Planes roared through the performances on their descent to Lindbergh Field. In response, actors “froze” in place while the aerial intrusions passed by, an iconic motif locals had come to tolerate, even enjoy, but which had me covering my ears since I could not in good conscience flee for the exits.

At the same time, the quality of the interrupted performance — it was “No, No, Nannette” with terrific tap dancing — was surprisingly high. So, following critics’ tradition here, I counted the planes when I reviewed there: 49 the year I stopped counting.

The artistic management attempted to deal with the planes in two ways — first by adding indoor shows at the Civic Theatre, and later, by dispensing with the stop-motion. The action and singing continued right on through the noise.

The company’s repertory always reflected both the times and the largely staid taste of its audience. Producing began in 1946 with Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville” and popular operettas: “Naughty Marietta,” “The Pirates of Penzance” (twice), “The Merry Widow” and “Countess Maritza.” The 1950s brought the Golden Age musicals of Irving Berlin and Rodgers & Hammerstein — “South Pacific” (seven times), “Oklahoma” (four times), “Call Me, Madam” (twice), “The King and I,” and every other Broadway biggie.

For three generations, hundreds of actors and nearly all of the city’s dancers cut their stage teeth on Starlight’s outdoor stage, where some 136 different musicals were seen in multiple productions. In 1985, Starlight took what it considered a risk and offered a very good staging of the boundary-pushing “A Chorus Line,” and after the millennium, there was an excellent staging of Stephen Sondheim’s gore-fest “Sweeney Todd” and even the acerbic “Urinetown.”

News that Starlight Musical Theatre is in deep financial trouble came as no surprise to theater watchers here. The miracle is that Starlight, aka San Diego Civic Light Opera, held on without changing its business practices for as long as it did. The once-thriving producing organization, founded 65 years ago, may not be terminal, but it’s on life support — the protective ventilator of Chapter 11 reorganization under the bankruptcy code.

As part of that reorganization, Starlight must create a plan to address an accumulated debt of at least $1 million, according to the organization’s 2009 federal tax filing, the most recent available for the nonprofit. A highly public portion of its debt — $15,469 plus interest — is owed to members of IATSE, a New York-based union of stagehands and stage managers that has filed suit in federal court for missed pension fund payments.

The company owes some payroll taxes, as well. A supplement to the 2009 IRA filing lists more than $500,000 ﻿in loans from board members, including $336,000 from Cinda Lucas, known as The Starlight Lady during her tenure as board president, $27,000 from current board president Kimberley Layton, and varying amounts between $10,000 and $63,000 from other board members. Some of those loans may have been forgiven; none was in default, yet all were approved by the board without written contracts.

Listed liabilities include $649,000 to Wells Fargo, a note payable of $325,000, and a $10,000 debt to the group’s accountant, John Lane, who filed the form.

Starlight board president Layton, director of public, corporate and community relations for the San Diego Chargers, said Monday that “a handful of very dedicated volunteers has been struggling to overcome the theater’s debt, and it became clear that despite our best efforts, this was the painful step we had to take to ensure the theater’s survival for the next generation.”

John Redman, former managing director of the San Diego Repertory Theatre and a consultant to Starlight, said Chapter 11 reorganization will allow the board to clarify the organization’s murky past finances.

“They didn’t know the playing field based on old claims they couldn’t substantiate,” he said. “Under a restructuring, a judge will make that playing field absolutely clear, and the board will know, in a business sense, the direction that it must take.”

Once the belle of the ball

Starlight has seen artistic highs and lows, and periods of financial struggle, during the 28 years I’ve been reviewing theater here. But when I arrived at the San Diego Union in 1983, the theater company drew huge, happy crowds of pre-performance picnickers to Balboa Park’s cavernous, 3,600-seat Starlight Bowl. The organization, then solvent and managed by Leon Drew, was a favorite of COMBO, the city’s old boys’ network of private arts funders.

Back then, Starlight’s opening nights were social events in a then-more-conservative town: City councilmen joined Union and Tribune owner Helen Copley and Amy Krulak, who was Starlight board president and wife to Marine Corps hero Victor “Brute” Krulak, to celebrate the city and one of its “flagship” arts institutions.

As early as 1989, headlines cited trouble when Harris Goldman, a veteran theater professional with regional and Broadway credits, took over after the retirement of the popular manager Drew. Local favorites Don and Bonnie Ward headed the artistic side.

By 1992, Bud Franks was in charge as manager, and an expensive and ill-advised world premiere production, the money-losing “Annie Warbucks,” sent the company into a financial tailspin from which it never truly recovered. In 1993, with Drew back as general manager, Starlight nearly canceled the summer season, though contributions, deferred payments and forgiven debts allowed the company to limp by despite a $1.4 million deficit. To avoid adding to the red ink, the administrative staff was laid off and regular seasons were severely curtailed in 1995 and 1996.

Several other factors had already begun to marginalize Starlight’s once-central place in the city’s artistic and cultural life.

The La Jolla Playhouse and the Old Globe launched top-quality new musicals themselves. Forming partnerships with commercial producers, directors Des McAnuff and Jack O’Brien produced works that sealed their theaters’ national reputations and gave local audiences a sneak peek at work that went on to New York.

Second, and more modestly, in Vista, an outdoor venue more congenial to artists and audiences than the plane-plagued Starlight Bowl became home to a rising organization, Moonlight Stage Productions. The Wards became mainstays there, along with Moonlight’s resident director Kathy Brombacher.

For Starlight, it’s been touch and go behind the scenes since 1997 when Cinda Lucas took over as board president and jack-of-all-trades, with artistic director Brian Wells and his short-lived successor Carlos Mendoza.

Whether Starlight will live to produce again remains an open question. But at least now, after the reorganization, its board will know what it legally owes and to whom. That has to be the first step if Starlight is to become a serious and professionally run big-city arts organization instead of a mom-and-pop operation flying on a wing and a prayer.